linux-mips@oss.sgi.com: "Dave J Woolley" <david.woolley@bts.co.uk> wrote to "David Christensen" <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com>: > You are off topic on license discuss - it has a rather narrow charter > of discussing proposed Open Source licence documents. OK > There are two levels of open-ness in hardware. I'm not sure that > there is any electronic computing hardware that is completely open to > the level that open source software is++, but there is basically > hardware for which the design documentation is published and there is > hardware for which a programming model is published. Open source > drivers require the latter, Open source development may require both. for example, let's say I want to buy a PS2, open it up, add some goodies, and then sell, release under GPL, gift to the public domain, etc., my derivative work. > or reverse engineering - which may be illegal (even in Europe as I > think publishing the driver source code exceeds the limited > permissions given to reverse engineer without the vendors permission - > black box reverse engineering is OK, I believe, but not anything that > looks at mechanism rather than behaviour##). > > I'm not sure if you meant open programming models (which in software > terms mean open interface specifications) or open design information. > > ++ I doubt that the photo-lithography masks for even simple > transistors re published. I want open programming models and open design information down to the schematic, board layout, and parts list level. The insides of integrated circuits can remain secret so long as their operation and interfaces are completely documented and there are no IP entanglements when I want to design, publish, build, sell, give away, etc., circuits, software, and products which use them. > ## My understanding is that the EEC law requires refusal of the > supplier to provide the information on reasonable (not necessarily > cost free) terms; the information not to be used to create a competing > product; the information only being sufficient to interface; the > information not to be published to third parties. IANAL. Interesting. David Christensen dpchrist@holgerdanske.com
